It is now commonplace for consumers (or customers or shoppers or buyers or users) to select goods or products to be purchased, rented or otherwise obtained from remote client-server based suppliers. Such suppliers may be e-commerce or Internet-based retailers or merchants, which also may be referred to as an on-line retailer or merchant. For example, on-line retailers have set up on-line Internet web sites where consumers can shop for the products (or items or goods) that are available, purchase or rent the products desired, and have the products delivered to them. These products may be tangible goods, such as groceries, books, CDs, DVDs, tools, clothes, footwear, health/beauty items, hardware, office supplies, pet care products, auto care products, industrial supplies or any other tangible goods that are physically delivered to the customer, or “digital” goods, such as electronic books, music, movies/videos, application software, or any other digital product that is downloaded, copied, transmitted or otherwise electronically transferred to the customer. Items could even be animals or people, such as could be used in an animal adoption (or purchase) context or on a social networking or dating website.
It is also known for on-line merchant websites to provide navigation tools that allow the customer to browse and/or search through the merchant website for desired items, information about items, and/or demographic data about purchasing activities of items (e.g., best sellers). Examples of such tools include keyword searches, best seller lists, recommendations lists, new releases, most popular searches, and the like. When using any of these tools, the website may display a list or group of results items based on the product category selected, e.g., books, DVDs, music, etc. When a desired product category is selected, e.g., books, a results list is displayed showing items related to the selected category (books) and a screen menu is displayed (e.g., on the left side of the screen) showing a hierarchical list of the first level of sub-categories available under books, such as fiction, photography, romance, etc. Next, if the customer selects one of these sub-categories, e.g., photography, a results list is displayed showing items related to the selected sub-category (photography) and an updated screen menu is displayed (e.g., on the left side of the screen) showing an updated hierarchical list of the first level of sub-categories available under photography, e.g., wildlife photography, digital photography, etc. This process continues until the customer has narrowed his category selection to the desired category or sub-category. If the customer has “drilled-down” three category levels and then decides to go to a different category or higher level category, the customer must repeat this process again with a newly selected category. Further, when the customer is at a given category level, the customer has no visibility into what other peer categories or sub-categories have results and/or the quantity of those results.
As a result, to find the desired information or item, the customer may spend a significant amount of time sorting through and selecting various lists of categories and sub-categories. Such a review and selection process for browsing a website can be cumbersome, inefficient, and frustrating for the customer and, does not promote customer exploration of the merchant website that could potentially stimulate additional merchant sales.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a system or method for providing item information or demographic data to shoppers that overcomes the limitations and inefficiencies of the conventional approaches, that among other potential benefits, provides a more efficient way of searching, browsing, displaying categories and/or selecting categories, makes it more convenient and efficient for the customer to obtain item information and demographic data, and/or encourages customers to search, explore, and discover items or information on the website that they otherwise might not have found, thereby improving the overall shopping experience with the merchant and improving merchant sales.